The present disclosure relates to a sheet feeding device feeding a sheet to an image forming apparatus and the image forming apparatus including this sheet feeding device.
In an image forming apparatus, such as a copying machine or a printer, a long irregular-sized sheet (e.g. its length is about 120 mm) (hereinafter, called as a “long sheet”) may be conveyed from a manual bypass tray arranged on a side face of the image forming apparatus into an apparatus main body.
On the manual bypass tray, a pair of side-fences sliding in a width direction orthogonal to a conveying direction of the long sheet to mutually approach/separate are arranged. The manual bypass tray is configured so that the long sheet can be set in a state matched at the center in the width direction of the manual bypass tray by these side-fences.
However, in the manual bypass tray, because a rear end portion of the long sheet is not placed on the tray, a problem causing a skew of the long sheet by the own weight of this rear end portion occurs. If a degree of the skew of the long sheet becomes high, the pair of side-fences moves from predetermined positions to the outside to spread in the width direction and the side-fences cannot match the long sheet. Accordingly, there are problems that the long sheet is further skewed and uplifting of the long sheet on the tray is caused.
Thereupon, to solve such problems, for example, there is a sheet feeding device, in which a sheet holding member attachable to/detachable from a manual bypass tray is arranged on a pulled-out extension guide and a lib is formed along the extension guide at a side facing to the extension guide of the sheet holding member.
Alternatively, there is a sheet feeding device having a long tray arranged above a manual bypass tray to support a rear portion of a long sheet and a guide member guiding the long sheet above the long tray when setting or feeding the sheet.
Moreover, there is a sheet holding device including a movement restricting member restricting a side-fence from moving from a predetermined position in a width direction and a height restricting member arranged above a sheet holding face and bridged in the width direction to restrict a height of the sheet from the sheet holding face and to prevent uplifting of a long sheet.
However, in the above-mentioned sheet feeding devices, it is impossible to prevent the side-fence from moving from the predetermined position in the width direction due to a load of the long sheet when feeding, it is still feared that matching deterioration of the long sheet and a skewed feeding of the long sheet due to uplifting of the long sheet are caused.
In addition, in the above-mentioned sheet holding device, although the movement restricting member and the height restricting member can prevent a skew of the long sheet according to floating of the long sheet, because the movement restricting member and the height restricting member have large and complex mechanisms, there are problems that attaching/detaching work takes labor and placing during nonuse troubles.